October 07
2005

SPIKE: OLD WOUNDS
Written by Scott Tipton, art and cover by Fernando Goni.
Is Spike's past coming back to haunt him? When a retired L.A. detective accuses Spike of a decades-old murder, the former William the Bloody finds himself on the run and forced to try to solve the most infamous unsolved crime in Los Angeles history. Where will he turn for help? What was Spike up to in 1947? And what do those monster-slaying luchadores Los Hermanos Numeros have to do with it? It's all-out action in the City of Angels,
48 pages, $7.49. Cover

ANGEL: OLD FRIENDS #3
Written by Jeff Mariotte, art by David Messina, covers by David Messina, Tone Rodriguez, Russell Walks and Dustin Evans.
Wesley and Illyria reunited? So it appears. But then, nothing is at it seems in Angel: Old Friends. Angel learns that he can't even trust his own eyes, and the situation in Los Angeles -- grim to begin with -- takes on a new and desperate hopelessness. Covers will be shipped in a 1-to-1 ratio.
32 pages, $3.99. Cover 1Cover 2Cover 3

ANGEL: THE CURSE TPB
Written by Jeff Mariotte, art and cover by David Messina.
Joss Whedon's classic vampire character returns to comics and IDW's got him! This book, collecting issues #1-5 of the Angel: The Curse series and written by fan-favorite Angel author Jeff Mariotte, will be of sure-fire appeal to fans of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel alike.
120 pages, $19.99.Cover

Description of the Old Friends Angel mini-series:Wesley and Illyria reunited? So it appears. But then, nothing is at it seems in Angel: Old Friends. Angel learns that he can't even trust his own eyes, and the situation in Los Angeles -- grim to begin with -- takes on a new and desperate hopelessness.

Sounds like Jeff Mariotte's really having to work around Whedon's "these are the parts you can't touch" restrictions. Since it sounds like some of the plot will involve illusions and/or dreams, I wonder if the book's even worth picking up. Even if it can fit with continuity, even if it still gels with whatever else Joss does in the Buffyverse, it won't have any bearing and a lot of the characters and their interactions may not even turn out to be "real". While I'm sometimes up for entertaining fanfic, I think I'm tired of that empty feeling I got from a lot of the regular series Buffy comics. Unless it's by a former Mutant Enemy writer and okayed by Joss (but much better if it's handled by him alone), I'm pretty much thinking these aren't worth the cash. For me.

I know what you mean, Kris. IDW's prices are enough to put even a longtime comicbook and Buffy/Angel fan such as myself off picking these titles up. Even the price of the TPB seems a little on the high side. Whatever happened to the days when you could get two or three comics for a quid?